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Culver Puts Iowa on the Map, First in the Nation, Last to Be Counted

November 5, 2004

Three days after Election Day, when all 49 OTHER states already had their results in, President Bush was declared the Iowa winner.  Finally.  Until then, the rest of the world was calling Iowa asking, "What's the hold-up?"  "What's the hold-up", may be an insightful use of the term. 

Under partisan Secretary of State Chet Culver, Iowa has gone from our "First in the Nation" caucuses, having delivered John Kerry as the Democrat nominee for president, to "Last in the Nation" for reporting the results from our polls. 

Culver has painted an indelible stain on Iowa's tradition of honest, clean, and unbiased elections.  Let's take a look at what Culver has done to undermine our election process:

• ·     First, Culver mailed absentee ballot request forms to every household in Iowa at the cost of several hundred thousand dollars, unprecedented in Iowa history.

• ·     Second, Culver convened the Iowa Voter Registration Commission and attempted to change election rules midcourse, just 8 days before Election Day.

• ·     Third, Culver advised County Auditors to accept voter registrations from people who did not lawfully claim citizenship, in direct violation of the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and the Iowa Code.

• ·     Fourth, Culver changed the rules and said that provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct would be counted for federal races, marking the first time in history that Iowans would not be required to vote in their own precinct.

• ·     Fifth, Culver persisted in his recommendations to County Auditors even after the U.S. Attorney's Office and the 6^th Circuit Court of Appeals opposed such actions.

Culver's motive is clear.  Election results show that the absentee ballots went by a 3-2 margin for Kerry and the Democrats, who were less likely to know their voting precincts.

The Culver scheme undermined the integrity of the electoral process and gave clear advantage to Democrats.  Iowa doesn't need more absentee voters.  Each time an absentee ballot is mailed, it costs the taxpayers money for postage and processing, another opportunity for voter fraud is created and system is bogged down with mail-in ballots.  Each time a prospective voter shows up at the wrong precinct and gets a provisional ballot, a bi-partisan team has to evaluate the ballot and make a decision on its legitimacy, further taxing the system.

In the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election fiasco, I chaired the Iowa Senate State Government Committee.  I advocated changes to improve the integrity of the voting process.  I believe that every voter should present a picture I.D., that the voter rolls should be purged of deceased, duplicates, and felons, and that the U.S. citizenship of each voter should be verified.  The relentless vigor with which Culver and the Democrats fought my reforms convinced me that they stood to lose if we cleaned up the system. 

If all 50 states had a Culver, America would have no idea who our president would be, even today.  Instead, the United States of America would be melting down into post-election chaos and a Democrat quagmire of litigation. 

 

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